This past weekend was my last chance to do a 20-miler before the marathon. You know, since I am cramming all my training into two weeks and all.

So I got up at 4, and met some friends at 5. As we pulled into the park to run, the lightning started. No, thanks. We sat in the car for an hour. And by “we,” I mean, they sat with me, even though I told them repeatedly to just go, I am more than happy to sit here and wait it out alone. But we all sat.

Then another group of friends unexpectedly showed up … and there was a break in the storm, so peer pressure and pride forced me out, for about 5 miles. We looped back, picked up more people, and then a clap of thunder sent me scurrying back to the car.

I’m a baby. I don’t care.

They kept going and ended up with 10.

I surfed Facebook on my phone in the car and had 5.

I wouldn’t normally get up that early for 5 miles. Ugh. But I also just won’t run in lightning. I recognize I am more conservative than my friends with weather. I confess to feeling like a big wimp. But oh well.

It ended up being a horrible day for me, running-wise. Good thing I don’t follow a training plan.

But I did hope to get in something, so on Sunday, I got up again and met some friends at Sertoma Park to run loops on the dirt trails. I ended up with 12.5 miles. Not the 20 I had hoped for, but better than the 5 on Saturday. I guess this is it, right?

Time to taper?

We ran 8 muggy miles this morning, I’ll do a few more days this week and I hope to knock out 10-15 on Friday. Then basically do almost nothing before the marathon in two weeks.

My friend and I were talking about training in general, and about what I hadn’t done this time around that I usually do. The answer? Everything.

I haven’t done thousands of push-ups, which I usually do. I am not even doing 100 a week, instead of 400ish a week.

I haven’t done back-to-back long runs — a 10 on a Friday and a 20 on a Saturday.

But the worst might be that I just haven’t done any fast runs. Everything has been pokey and mellow.